Food for thought

[Neutron Monster]

Why are we so buying so many fighter planes that seem designed to win the Korean war and not wars of 2015? Why did we have so few armored vehicles ready in 2004? How have no generals been fired for incompetence over an 11 year period? Did the lack of connection to serving military members make invading Iraq an easier decision (Colin Powell certainly thought so.) An awful lot of tough questions to think about in here.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/

 

[millerbleach]

Originally posted by Neutron Monster:
Why are we so buying so many fighter planes that seem designed to win the Korean war and not wars of 2015? Why did we have so few armored vehicles ready in 2004? How have no generals been fired for incompetence over an 11 year period? Did the lack of connection to serving military members make invading Iraq an easier decision (Colin Powell certainly thought so.) An awful lot of tough questions to think about in here.

I don't think we can blame the Generals unless we follow their advice.

 

[3Rfan]

I saw a 3 Star General on TV this morning that has written a book on why we "lost" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said our fighting forces are built to win battles but NOT wars. He also said it takes the will of the country to win wars that last more than a few months and we just don't have that.

 

[wcowherd]

It's amazing to me that so much of the country can be completely uninvested in an 11 year war.

 

[vbsideout]

Like I have always said if you want your citizens to truly get invested in war you need to start the draft and get everyone invested. Until then apathy will be the rule. Once the politicians would have to come up with ways to keep their family members out of these so called wars or empire building there would be a tremendous shift in how our nation feels about war.

 

[Stevedangos]

I remember when Don Rumsfeld was getting grilled by congress for our troops being I'll equipped and he said "You go to war with the army you have" and he was severely criticized for it.

He was entirely correct, our military went to crap under Clinton and after 9-11 when we needed to do battle we were not prepared. You can't tell the enemy to wait around for 4-5 years while we build armored equipment and everything needed to wage a campaign halfwar around the world. You pick up, pack up and go fight with what you have.

Rumsfelds biggest mistake in his life was thinking we could take and control Iraq with 50,000 troops and it would all be over in a few months.

 

[SadButTrue]

Originally posted by Stevedangos:


Rumsfelds biggest mistake in his life was thinking we could take and control Iraq with 50,000 troops and it would all be over in a few months.

EPIC, disastrous mistake is a better term.

 

[3Rfan]

The bigger mistake was being in Iraq at all. We had plenty of folks and equipment to fight in Afghanistan but we took em out to go to Iraq for no good reason.

Then tonight I saw the 4 Star General in charge of Afghanistan on 60 Minutes. He took the reporter on a night time helicopter ride to see all the lights in the city and on the highway and bragged that was all done by US. She recalled being there years ago and the place was almost completely dark. He also said the country can NOT afford to keep their military at current the level, much less increasing it, which means WE have been paying their military and police force all these years. We spent a LOT of money trying to bring that place into the 20th century at the time. It does not matter if we leave next year or in 10 years it will go back to the dark ages because the Taliban, Al Qaida, ISIS or who ever is the next big thang in terrorism will take over and they don't want to be in the 20th century and certainly not in the 21st.

 

[Neutron Monster]

I don't think you can read if that's what you think I or the writer of the article said. The points are that someone surely had to be incompetent enough to be fired just due to sheer numbers (can't have 1,000 generals all be "above average") and that more engaged political oversight has led to many generals being fird in the past.

 

[Neutron Monster]

Technically, 13 year war when you consider Afghanistan. And there's no end in sight to the wars. This is the longest war in american history.

It's becoming hard to remember what it was like for the U.S. to not be at war for any material amount of time between Vietnam and 9/11 save for the gulf war. Nearly 30 years of calm has been replaced by perpetual war. That's part of what causes us to tune it out.

 

[Neutron Monster]

For such a smart man, if is staggering to see how disconnected Don Rumsfeld was from what would really happen. I've always been astonished at how incredibly wrong he was. My guess has always been that it was compounded by groupthink of his surrounding neocons. They wanted to believe in something simple so they avoided the tough questions and scenarios.

 

[Neutron Monster]

I agree the military did not evolve post Cold War but that's more than a Clinton problem. Notably, the military itself as well as Congress both failed to envision the way the world would change. This is a perpetual problem - America's military has been overly focused on fighting the last war over again for 200 years now.

It's not accurate to say the military went to crap; the military wasn't suddenly less trained or underfunded. Our military remained very good at doing what it was set up to do. It was an issue of planning and vision. We didn't understand what the future threats would be. We were still focused on fighting traditional land wars against nation-states.

There's also the issue that the military is a terrible choice to use for political nation building; Clinton and the generals can't really be held accountable for the Bush administration's pretending that the military could magically win a non-military battle in Iraq. It was just as hopeless a goal then as it was in Vietnam. The military was never going to be able to fix sectarian strife with a long term solution. All it could do was tame it while it was there.

Also, Rumsfeld deserved to get killed for that comment. If you don't think you can win an unnecessary elective war with the way your military is set up, the obvious answer is to NOT GO TO WAR.

The toughest question of all about Iraq is even more depressing than this - why did we think we were achieving something of worth to begin with?

IMO, even if we had found active WMD programs, when you look at what has happened since 2003 to the U.S., it is extremely difficult to justify going there. It was a terrible use of over a trillion of taxpayer dollars and the lives of so many young men and women.

 

[Scout 4u]

Nice article Neutron about a position that supports your views.

Your point?

I would counter that argument with "No War" is perfect.

In the Persian Gulf War a Coalition plane was nearly shot down by our own military. The USS Missouri came just mins from being sunk by China made SAMs before being destroyed by a friendly war ship. An obsolete Cold War Scud Missile penetrated Saudi Arabian air space hitting an American barracks, killing 28, injuring over a 100.

If that Patriot Missile would have shot down one of our own Coalition Planes...
would that missile system be taged a failure by the American Media?

If our Coalition Allies would have not intercepted that array of missiles aimed at the Missouri and it sunk do to its own ammunition exploding...
would CNN declare the war a success ?

If that same Cold War Era Scud Missile would have hit a barracks in Iraq in 2003 instead of one in Saudi Arabia in 1991....
would Democrats go on national television and say that there was no one to blame?

My point is simple...
War is Political and there are no easy answers.

When Democrat President Harry Truman over took Japan in WWII , "Nation Building" was deemed acceptable. (6) years...
And when he used the Atom bomb twice in the same country over a 100,000 men, women and children we're vaporized...
people were ok with that.

My how times have changed...

This post was edited on 1/6 12:55 AM by Scout 4u

 

[Neutron Monster]

That's really all over the place and not really a rebuttal of basically anything I said.

WWII was very different than Vietnam or Iraq.

Foreign policy is difficult, I'll grant you that. And envisioning all of the future is hard. But, it Isn't that hard to envision certain discrete events. Notably, the most likely scenario of an invasion of Iraq that completely toppled saddam was likely a sectarian quagmire. we created the next Lebanon. The fact that this was not acknowledged or even hardly contemplated by our political leaders is a travesty.

 

[Scout 4u]

Not that anything I say matters but...
was the battle of Okinawa a mistake?

12,000 killed, 38,000 wounded in a "battle" ...not war that took (82) days, not years.

Should the Democrat leadership today not ask US to shame all those involved including the president?
Surely you agree that the president must have known?

No, war is not perfect...
and yes it is fogey depending upon who's eyes you are seeing it with...

 

[Neutron Monster]

Originally posted by Scout 4u:
Not that anything I say matters but...
was the battle of Okinawa a mistake?

12,000 killed, 38,000 wounded in a "battle" ...not war that took (82) days, not years.

Should the Democrat leadership today not ask US to shame all those involved including the president?
Surely you agree that the president must have known?

No, war is not perfect...
and yes it is fogey depending upon who's eyes you are seeing it with...

There is a fundamental difference between defending your country when it is grievously attacked and starting an elective war. The acceptable level of casualties and dollars spent are fundamentally different.

WWII was an existential threat to the world as we knew it. It demanded the response of Total War from the US. You cannot accept Pearl Harbor; you had Japan, Germany, and Italy all declare war on you. You had no choice. You were in the fight.

Had Iraq been left alone and the US would probably be in a better place overall.

 

[Scout 4u]

Your overall points I agree with, Iraq in 2002 was not France in 1942. Our trust in leadership I suppose will always differ. I will still promote a Harry S Truman approach to war (vs) a Barack Obama approach. Perhaps were both right, how refreshing that would be...

Nice talking with you...

 

[Neutron Monster]

Originally posted by Scout 4u:
Your overall points I agree with, Iraq in 2002 was not France in 1942. Our trust in leadership I suppose will always differ. I will still promote a Harry S Truman approach to war (vs) a Barack Obama approach. Perhaps were both right, how refreshing that would be...

Nice talking with you...

Questions for you

- Do you know who was the President during the vast majority of WWII, specifically 1942?

- What do you think the Obama approach to war is? Obama's actions, to date, are almost exactly what a Republican President would have done for the last six years. He surged in Afghanistan. He is the drone President. He's using a muscular surveillance program. He's put us in the Libya and Syria civil war. He pulled out the troops of Iraq because they refused to give us a fair agreement on how our armed forces could operate, not because he didn't want to leave a force there. What would President Romney have done differently?

Obama on national defense is perhaps the single most Republican part of his Presidency (it's this or free trade). For a guy who opposed the Iraq war, he has governed like a hawk.
This post was edited on 1/6 4:21 PM by Neutron Monster

 

[Scout 4u]

Not sure of your question?
I'm assuming you knew Franklin Delano's death do to illness in 1945 was what brought Truman into power ? ? ?

As for Barack Obama being like my version of a Hawk president ...
Now that's funny...

Gotta go for now but I'll get back with you on Conservative Obama...lol

 

[Neutron Monster]

Barack is a mainstream Republican on national defense.

Overall, national defense is probably where the two parties are the closest right now, both support a muscular foreign policy and a muscular war on terror. Neither party is interested in another Iraq; both have combat fatigue.

This post was edited on 1/6 5:30 PM by Neutron Monster